18 Days. Are You Ready?

18 Days. Are You Ready?

CUPCAKE

Yes, it’s that time of year. Parents are cleaning, baking, and working hard to ensure their children experience a magical Christmas. But maybe this year, instead of the perfect tree, we can pour our efforts into figuring out how to keep Christmas real. Maybe this year, we can reclaim Christmas with a Christmas prayer deeper than pretty ideas of snow and sleigh bells. This prayer doesn’t involve Santa slipping down the chimney or leaving out cookies and milk. This is a prayer for a white Christmas where my loved ones and yours might wake to discover a covering of white sent to erase a lifetime of stain.

The miracle isn’t on 34th Street, the miracle is how God made it possible for every weary soul to rejoice, truly making this the most wonderful time of the year. As you strive to find that perfect gift to give your loved one, ask yourself: Have you received the perfect gift that God gives you at Christmas? Because He loved us first, God came for us. God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting. Chosen before the foundations of the earth, before one day came to be, He chose His people. God gloriously displayed His love that first Christmas when He rent open the skies and a multitude of angels spilled over the edge of heaven proclaiming, “Glory to God in the highest!”

This Christmas, listen to the greatest love story ever told by the God-child who came to pursue you. He came to reach you. He is greater than any Grinch or Santa Claus, and He left his kingdom in Heaven to pursue you on Earth. He came to dwell with you in your loneliness and alienation and give you the courage to reach out and take God’s hand.